Noise Pop: Joanna Newsom
You may not be aware of this, but did you know the Swedish-American Hall is actually a ski lodge? Or did we miss the weather report that it was going to snow this weekend? The crowd waiting at the sold-out Joanna Newsom Noise Pop show was all bundled up like we live in Minnesota, with a profusion of complicatedly-knitted sweaters, scarves, shawls, and fuzzy hats. They were selling hot cocoa and tea at the drinks counter. People were wearing mukluks and circle skirts. Girls looking for tickets were wearing knit caps and singing outside in two-part harmony with signs saying, "WE NEED TO SEE OUR INSPIRATION!" They should've just had St. Bernards wandering the hall with little rum barrels around their necks too. (It's true that Joanna Newsom did request that people wear alpine sweaters to her last show in New York -- but at least in New York, it was actually snowing at the time!)
They set up the front half of the auditorium with folding chairs, and for the first three singer-songwriters (Drew O'Doherty, Hudson Bell, and Nicolai Dunger), latecomers sat cross-legged on the floor. Joanna Newsom's harp, covered in canvas, loomed behind the sensitive boys singing solo through the first three sets as the room filled up and the drinks table ran out of hot chocolate.
Gentle guitars and some fierce, fierce harpwork, after the jump.
If we were better with Photoshop, we would have cut and pasted a harp in place of Kimber. Guilfoyle on the Getty carpet with Joanna's (actual) cousin Gavin for the picture here, but alas, you're stuck with an actual picture of Joanna in concert in London from soundgenerator.com
The three opening acts were kind of Noise Pop Unplugged, with Ted Leo and the Pharmacists' guitarist Drew O'Doherty's unruffled rendition of tender love songs, and his dryly-hilarious stage banter (revealing -- maybe inadvertently, maybe not -- an undercurrent of not-unwelcome aggression in what's usually considered a wimpy pop genre, in his tales about dreams about fighting and recording his forthcoming album over heavy metal tapes) opening the show. And next up, local writer and artist Hudson Bell's lyrically abstruse songs that sounded like oddly-unfinished and strangely-violent lullabies (like how the baby all of a sudden falls out of the tree in Rockabye Baby?).
Swedish indie singer-songwriter Nicolai Dunger took the set immediately before Joanna's, which was sort of like a sing-along Van Morrison show, as he goaded the Alpine-clad audience into ululating its way through his dreamy pop songs and their cooly-jazzy guitar riffs. We're not into John Mayer but we sort of get why other people are now.
Then, a small break as people ran to get peppermint tea and compared the cable knitting patterns on their sweaters. As this was going on, a young lady wearing a glittery headpiece unobtrusively walked on stage and unzipped the canvas cover over her harp. Welcome home, Joanna.
"This is the panopticon!" she shouted, and launched into an a capella song. Now, here's the trick with Ms. Newsom: the songs sound all gentle and naive and fairy-tale-ish, with Newsom's much-discussed pipy voice and crazy lyrics, and, as all harpists know, their instrument comes with a lot of mythological angels-and-fairies baggage too. But what became instantaneously clear at the show is that the reason why she has a cult following is because she is an extremely well-trained artist.
She knows exactly what she's doing -- she's got breath control over her voice, she composed all those complicated harpwork passages herself -- and underneath all that "isn't she a sweet little innocent angel" big eyes and bright smile outsider-art hoopla is a canny, sophisticated young musician using two unusual genres of sound (harp and folk music) as a vehicle to express nothing less than the complexities of human feeling and emotion. And really, isn't that what we aspire for all great music to do? (Plus, the songs are catchy as all get out. All together now: "Saaaaaaay-dee!")
We haven't really been blown away by a show in a long time, but -- wow. Newsom seemed thrilled to finally be home with her family, after over a year of touring, and that fierce intensity of feeling really permeated the whole show. In person, she's gotten rid of much of The Milk-Eyed Mender's twee-er sensibilities and the songs come off as significantly craftier (in all senses of the word -- savvy, well-created, self-aware) as a result.
And her harpwork is really just technically so impressive too! We're not harp experts or anything, but -- we loved the bass harp chordwork! You almost never get to hear that over the standard glissandos the harp always gets stuck with in orchestral works. And especially on the new material, you can see the arc of her maturing musical and lyrical compositional skills: we really liked the unfinished song about the meteorites, and can't wait to see how it turns out. It's just so exciting to see someone so obviously coming into their full talents and it gives such a thrill of anticipation to see what she's going to be doing next.